After a delightful breakfast of dry cereal, I managed to drag my self out of my bed after after a 15 minute nap to head down to the marina with my classmates. By now, I’ve firmly cemented myself as the trip DJ resulting in me playing some killer tunes on the way to the harbor. As usual, my boat geared up by connecting our BCD’s to our tanks. Anyways, after Zultan powered up the boat, we headed to a portion of Virgin Gorda where a former World War 2 boat, which is one of five surviving Pearl Harbor boats, was sunk to promote reef conservation. This project was aided and funded primarily by Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. At around 9:30, we hopped into the water and quickly dropped to 50 feet to explore the “Kodak Queen.” After quickly descending to 50 feet, we explored the ship around the exterior, took a few photos, and made our way towards the bow to enter the inside of the ship. Inside, we meticulously navigated around the hallways and found a room that contained a phone and a bottle of rum. From here, my clumsy self cut my hand on a part of the boat. After continuing to explore, we ascended back to the surface and took a short journey over to a different part of the island where we dove to twenty feet and began cleaning a coral nursery. We used grill brushes to wipe off algae and fire coral that was beginning to cover the PVC pipe system. Cleaning the pipes is an inherent part in insuring that the Elkhorn Coral growing there will be able to safely grow and be transplanted. After this cleaning, we traveled to a portion of the island that contained mangrove ecosystems. Here, we jumped off the boat and ate lunch for about an hour before doing a snorkel along the shoreline. Along the shoreline, we found Tarpon, Barracuda, and even a six for Hammerhead Shark. Finally, we headed back to the marina and ate a delicious dinner of lasagna and garlic bread.
Tomorrow, I’m looking forward to working on our group service project. We are working at the local high school on Virgin Gorda to help prepare the school for the upcoming school year. I’m very excited to do this knowing that I’m helping the school prepare for the educating of local children.
Today I learned that maintains nursery health is an important part in maintaining coral health and growth.
